Welcome to Gaia! ::

The whereabouts of said Leaf were nothing mysterious. He'd simply woken up before her and left to go for a morning walk. Since she'd been rather ill lately, Kayde had only been thinking about giving her some space to wake up on her own. Maybe a little extra undisturbed sleep would hep her. As silently as he could, he'd gotten dressed, grabbed some fruit off a bowl on the counter, and left, without a single care in the world or suspicion of anything but some persistent stomach bug. He got to enjoy a lovely stroll down the beach, the slight breeze making only small waves on the surface. The sun was just beginning to rise as he set out, so he had the lovely sight of watching the sky changing colors as he ate the fruit to serve as his small breakfast until he returned back to the house.

Which ended up being a lot later than he had intended. In true Kayde fashion, he had walked far enough to find a small fishing party setting up to go out for a day's work of hauling fish back to sell at market. He stopped to talk to them and help them out a little with their preparations. What he had expected to be only a half hour turned into two hours as he than got to talking to the wives of the fisherman who had come to see their husbands off. He even got to build a sandcastle with one of the kids who was worried about her dad going out for the first time.

As the wind began to pick up and the sun had been fully shining on the world for a while, the Leaf figured it was plenty of time to give Elka a chance at a peaceful morning. He turned back for home, unaware of what he was returning to.

He hadn't been expecting to be tackled as soon as he entered the house. This wasn't a new thing for him, leaving in the morning for a walk by himself while she slept. Some days one didn't have to get up early and he respected that. Elka liked her long hours of sleep. Plus, she was sick. He thought he was doing her a kindness. Had he been wrong? What was different about this time?

"Hey, calm down." Pushing her away, Kayde wiped at the tears on her face, brushing them away with a thumb. She sniffed, looking at him silently with red-rimmed eyes. "Is something wrong? You've never reacted like this before to me leaving in the morning." His pale eyes scanned her body, looking for anything out of the ordinary. A cut. A bruise. Anything at all that would give him a hint of the problem. Than he scanned the room, thinking maybe someone had forced themselves inside and taken something. But everything was still in its place. She had no noticeable wounds.

When he tried to run his hands over her, this time using touch to find anything irregular, she grabbed his hands and held them between them, their entwined fists below their waists. "What is it? Something is clearly wrong."

Nothing is wrong.

That sentence did little to curve Kayde's worry. In fact, it heightened it, That meant there was something to worry about, something she was hiding from him.

Again, he caught himself looking around the house for anything irregular, something just slightly out of place. That was when she took one of his hands and placed it palm open onto her abdomen. He looked down, seeing nothing worth doing this over, than back up at her golden eyes, staring at him and willing him to understand. He didn't. His mind was still trying to fabricate all these reasons for her behavior. Was she trying to say that persistent flu was getting worse? But she looked fine. She always did by the afterno--

Something clicked into his head than. Pale eyes wide, the Leaf stared at the woman before him, not daring to speak the words.

"Beard....?" He couldn't comprehend anything else but what was underneath his hands. Was she....? Or was she tricking him, saying that stomach flu was finally gone? But wait...Who even had the flu for as long as she did? How long had she known? And how had he been so stupid until now?

"Are you sure?" was the only question he could think of to ask.

So it was true. He was going to be a father. He still wasn't sure if he believed it. It felt like just yesterday that they were still in Jauhar, her so mad at him that she refused to even look at him. How far they had come from those immature teenage days. He still remembered the first day, when she had punched him in the stomach and almost made him fall over in pain from it. Such a feisty, unpredictable woman she was. Still could be, but the face that was gazing back at him, that had been gazing like this for years, was so much softer. There was a glow about her, like a complete bubble of happiness that she couldn't contain.

"I...I didn't expect you to get pregnant this fast." It was true. It had only been five months since they had officially put a voice to what they had been doing. That seemed awfully quick to him. The spare bedroom was still a work in progress. The bed was gone, so the only thing left in the room was now a dresser. They would need to find a crib. A toybox. Toys. Baby clothes. Supplies. There was so much to do and time was now of the essence.

Holding her face in his hands, Kayde returned the small kiss, going for her lips instead of her nose as she had done. "Of course I am excited! But there's still so much to prepare! How much time do we even have left? And our careers have barely started."

Kayde's eyes started to widen once more as she shut him up. She didn't seem worried at all. Quite the opposite. She was nothing but glowing. Was it just a product of carrying a child? Feeling it grow inside you, filling you with the joy of its creation and birth into the world? Normally he was the carefree one, telling her things would be fine. It was so odd being on the receiving end of it this time. A sure sign indeed that he had put behind him that impulsive teenager who decided on a whim to become an acrobat and travel the known world with other entertainers. Seems he'd lost more than just that wanderlust, but also set aside his old recklessness of doing something just because it felt like a good idea at the time. Now he couldn't stop worrying.

"But, Elka," he responded around her finger, feeling the hairs on his upper lip being pulled where her finger settled on his skin. "We are not fully prepared. I...I know I said I was ready back than, but...This was so fast. There's still so much more to be done to the room."

"No, I...That's not what I...Elka, I'm sorry." He tried walking forward, to take her in his arms and sooth her angry, but she continued to dodge out of his way. He gave up with a sigh, holding his hands out palm up. "Yes, I did want it and I am excited to start this new journey with you. But I also want to make sure we can provide everything we can to our child when they are brought into the world." He lowered his hands, brushing at the front of his pants. "We do make decent money, it's true. Even with you taking time off, it'll be fine. I just...Worry now, I suppose. I don't want to be a bad father."